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On a bank fraud charge; he was trying to fly to Pakistan

(Newser) -
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has fired an IT staffer following his arrest on a bank fraud charge at a Virginia airport where he was attempting to fly to Pakistan. A rep for Wasserman Schultz says Irman Awan was fired by the Florida Democrat on Tuesday, reports the AP . Awan's...
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Rick Gorka loses it in Poland

(Newser) -
The gaffes keep rolling for Mitt Romney's weeklong overseas trip: As the traveling press corps lobbed questions at the candidate in Poland yesterday, frustrated at having had just three queries answered since Thursday, a Romney aide decided he'd had enough. Traveling Press Secretary Rick Gorka first demanded that...
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(Newser) -
Amid press conferences and big speeches, President Obama spent his first two years in office as “his own messenger.” But expect that to change in the run-up to the next election, writes Michael Scherer in Time . In those first two years, Obama lacked a solid team of spokespeople;...
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(Newser) -
Under fire for recent flaps over RNC spending, Chairman Michael Steele has hired a new “special assistant for finance”—and possibly walked into another gaffe. Neil S. Alpert, the 31-year-old wunderkind whose new job it will be to “help raise money” and “find new funds,”...
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RNC chair predicted party won't take back Congress in 2010

(Newser) -
GOP lawmakers are so irate over loose-canon Michael Steele's pronouncements on his book tour—including a prediction Monday that Republicans will not win back the House and Senate in 2010—that they had their aides give his aides a dressing down on a conference call Wednesday. “You really just...
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...and 5 failures bigger than you realize

(Newser) -
Obama clearly ran a successful campaign—but what kind of a job did he do running the country in his first year at the helm? While the president "has not been overmatched, he has not yet mastered the role either," Mark Halperin writes in Time . Some things he's...
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Kristen Jarvis came up in Obama's Senate office, and has proven stellar

(Newser) -
Kristen Jarvis has had tough jobs. She joined Barack Obama’s office in 2004, when he was a newly minted senator. But that was nothing compared to last year’s presidential campaign, when she was given a different charge: Michelle Obama. As her "body woman," Jarvis did everything...
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Tell-all author was disturbingly attached to senator, to his wife's dismay

(Newser) -
Andrew Young was right there every time John Edwards needed a Diet Coke, dry cleaning, a ride from the airport, and finally a babydaddy for his mistress. The "personal servant" who turned tell-all author—other aides even called him Edward’s “butt boy”—showed a fierce devotion...
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Sessions' $1.6M went to firm not in his district

(Newser) -
Rep. Pete Sessions is a vocal opponent of earmarks, but last year he scored one for a company that's not even in his district. Thanks to Sessions, $1.6 million for airship research went to a firm with no experience in either government contracting or blimp-making, Politico reports. Seems that...
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Woman's husband, son were also on senator's payroll

(Newser) -
Campaign treasurer Cynthia Hampton's salary doubled after she began an affair with her boss, Sen. John Ensign, the Las Vegas Sun reports. Federal election documents show that pay for Hampton—whose husband and son also worked for Ensign—jumped from around $1400 to $2800 a month early last year.
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Obama taps aide as press secretary, names 2 others for communications

(Newser) -
Barack Obama today named Robert Gibbs as White House press secretary, the Washington Times reports. Gibbs, 37, worked for 2 years as an Obama spokesman on the campaign trail and was widely expected to take the job. Well-liked by reporters, Gibbs flared up at times on the campaign and is...
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Reggie Love takes care of candidate's every need

(Newser) -
Reggie Love is rarely more than a body length away from Barack Obama, but the ever-present aide isn’t a body guard or a strategist—heck, the 26-year-old doesn’t even have a job description. “It was just like, ‘You just go out there and… Take. Care. Of....
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Architect of Carter's White House run succumbs to cancer

(Newser) -
Jimmy Carter's former chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, has died at the age of 63 after battling cancer for more than 20 years, AP reports. Jordan was at the core of Carter's "Georgia Mafia," and helped propel the Democrat into the White House in 1976. "He was...
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They were sent to Capitol Hill; bomber remains unknown

(Newser) -
As many as 10 Capitol Hill offices received letters today with a photo of a man standing in front of the Times Square military recruiting office before it was struck by a small bomb. A message with the photo reads, “Happy New Year, We Did It,” the AP...
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